film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

preacher-recap.jpg

'Preacher': Jesse Custer's Last Stand

By Brian Richards | Preacher | July 18, 2016 |

By Brian Richards | Preacher | July 18, 2016 |


The Story So Far:

JESSE: Spends the entire hour holed up in his church and defending it from Odin Quincannon, Donnie, and a couple dozen other Quincannon Meat & Power employees. It’s pretty much like the ending of Scarface minus the mountain of cocaine, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio sauntering out in nothing but an open bathrobe & trying to kill her incestous brother, and, well…all of the gunplay. Granted, we do get Jesse beating the shit out of some of those employees (without actually seeing it happen), using a sniper rifle to shoot weapons out of everyone’s hands as well as shoot someone’s dick clean off, but if you were hoping that this episode would look like something out of a John Woo movie, you’re out of luck. He also is able to rescue Arseface from Hell and pulls him out of the ground where he originally disappeared once he promises God that he will never use The Word again, but Arseface’s return and every other interaction the two of them have with each other unfortunately turns out to be nothing more than a figment of Jesse’s guilt-ridden imagination.

TULIP: Goes to a dog pound and brings home an adorable bloodhound named Brewski. Just as it looks like the two of them are bonding and Tulip has someone to give her love and affection to because Jesse refuses to accept any of it, she then leads Brewski into a room and locks him inside, where we hear him getting killed, drained, and eaten by Cassidy as part of his recovery process from his full exposure to the sun last week.

Yes, you read that correctly. That is what Tulip does and that is all Tulip does in this entire episode.

CASSIDY: We don’t see him this week because…well, see above paragraph.

EMILY: Finds out from Mayor Person that the church will no longer belong to Jesse and that Odin will be tearing it down. And after reminding Mayor Person once again that she has no desire for him or any of his “Nice Guy” bullshit, he gives one of her kids some expired milk to enjoy his cereal with. Because, you know, women are the ones who don’t know how to keep their emotions in check when dealing with anything.

FIORE & DEBLANC: The two of them are recruited by Sheriff Root to deal with Jesse and end this stand-off and after hearing about Eugene ending up in Hell, they promise Jesse to help retrieve him, as long as he surrenders Genesis. Jesse does so, the Not-Men In Black welch on their agreement, and Genesis being the uncontrollable offspring of an angel and demon that it is, destroys the coffee can that was confining it and immediately bonds with Jesse again. Which only makes Fiore and DeBlanc throw their hands up in frustration and realize that their last resort (which I’m guessing is The Saint Of Killers, and who probably won’t appear until the season finale) is the only thing that this can possibly bring this to an end.

EUGENE JR. a.k.a. ARSEFACE: Still in Hell and still very much being excluded from this narrative.

FLASHBACK: We see the entire Quincannon family on a ski trip (unfortunately, neither Lucas Neff nor Elizabeth Perkins are anywhere to be seen among them so we can finally take this as the nail in the coffin to any original hopes we had for them being cast members, or at least for them playing members of the Quincannon family) and happily riding up to their destination in a lift, only for the wires holding the lift that they are on to snap, and they all end up falling to their deaths. Odin doesn’t take the news very well and after killing a cow and tearing out its intestines in his office (!) as well as tearing out the internal organs of his family from their individual coffins, demands that John Custer denounce God right then and there. This is also where we find out that this was the original source of tension between John Custer & Odin Quincannon, and what Jesse witnessed in his office as a little boy was grief-stricken, blood-soaked Odin with a cow’s internal organs in his hands.

ODIN QUINCANNON’S WEEKLY MOMENT OF WEIRDNESS: We find out that the reason why Jesse telling Odin via The Word to serve God is because Odin Quincannon denounced the God that everyone prays to and worships, and is actually a believer in the God Of Meat, or as he puts it: “The God of what is tangible, what’s touchable and true.” Once he and his men are able to secure Jesse and his church (thanks to Donnie using his revolver to blow out his eardrums and damage his hearing, so that The Word no longer has an effect on him), he gives Jesse the deed to the church to sign. Which Jesse is willing to do, as long as he can give a sermon the following Sunday in which he promises to bring God to the town of Annville, make him answer everyone’s questions, and then denounce him before everyone. All of this right before Jesse is taken into custody by Sheriff Root and driven away, while all of his parishioners cry out and beg to be helped and saved.

ANY MENTIONS OF CARLOS: None

ANY MENTIONS OF THE VAMPIRE-HUNTING VIGILANTES LOOKING FOR CASSIDY: None

ANY MENTIONS OF HOW MUCH CASSIDY REALLY DOESN’T LIKE THE BIG LEBOWSKI: None, as Cassidy was too busy killing dogs offscreen as his version of Robitussin to help him feel better

TO SUM IT ALL UP: If you like an episode where a potentially interesting and awesome-to-see action sequence, in the form of Jesse squaring off against Odin Quincannon and his men in a gunfight, is cut short and barely even seen, then this is the episode for you.

If you want an episode where once again Tulip is given nothing to do except make you wonder why she’s still around and whether or not we’re supposed to even like her, then this is the episode for you.

If you want an episode where things go back to being in a narrative standstill and nothing really happens to push the story forward despite there being only two episodes left in the season, then this is the episode for you.

If you want an episode that makes me want to repeat the same complaints and problems I’ve had with Preacher regarding its pacing, its characterization or lack thereof, and its storytelling choices for the last few weeks and for damn near its entire season, then this is the episode for you.

If, however, you want to see the episode end by watching Not-Desmond push the button every 108 minutes to prevent The Island from being destroyed to release all of the pressure from the city’s pipes, and give lots of credence to Dustin’s theory about how this season will end and what will happen to really get this story started the way we all hoped it would since the Pilot, then this really is the episode for you.